Cellular box construction



Sept. 12, 1939. F. .VALKER CELLULAR BOX CONSTRUCTION Filed 'March 16, 1938 @WiL,

ATTORNEYS.

Patented Sept. 12, 1939 UNITED "STATES CELLULAR BOX CONSTRUCTION Paul Walker, Chicago, 111., assignor to Morris Paper Mills, Chicago, 111., a corporation of Illinois Application March 16, 1938, Serial No. 196,227

' 6 Claims. (01. 217-23) 7 This invention relates to boxes or cartons for the packaging of various materials, for example, loose materials such as candy. It relates particularly to an insert or partition member designed for the purpose of subdividing the contents receiving space of a box or carton into a plurality of cells or compartments.

The principal object of they invention is the provision of such a cellular member which may be manufactured and supplied to the user at a very low cost and in a fiat or collapsed condition, and which maybe setup at the point of use very quicklyandvery easily without use of any tools, appliances or additional fastenings,

:215 Another object is the provision of such an article which may be made economically'from paper board or the like and set up from a flat condition without exposing the fingers of the operator to injury or abrasion by the edges of the board.

Other and further objects of the invention will be pointed out or indicated hereinafter or will be apparent to one skilled in the art from the following description.

For the purpse of aiding in an explanation of the invention, I show in the accompanying drawing forming a part of this specification, and hereinafter described, one embodiment of it. It is to be understood, however, that this is presented merely by way of illustration and hence is not to be construed in any fashion calculated to limit the appended claims short of the true and most comprehensive scope of the invention in the art.

In said drawing,

l is a plan view of a sheet of paper board or the like which is slotted and creased to form the blank of which the cellular or partition member is made;

Fig. 2 is a plan View of the said compartment member formed by folding and fastening the 40 blank illustrated in Fig. 1, and showing the flat or collapsed form in which the article is packaged and delivered to the user;

Fig. 3 is a view of the same article in the course of being set up from its collapsed form;

Fig. 4 is a perspective View of the same member in its set-up form;

Fig. 5 illustrates the use of the article as a partition member in a carbon; and

Fig. 6 is a perspective view of the compartment 50 member shown in Fig. 2 but displaying it in an abnormal position for the purpose of illustrating its structure.

The nature of the invention will be most quickly and fully ascertained from a detailed description 55 of the construction shown in the drawing.

The blank shown in Fig. 1 is formed of a sheet of suitable paper board by slotting or cutting it through on the solid lines and scoring or creasing it on the dotted lines, and cutting and punching out portions to form the finger apertures l0. 5 These cuts and creases delineate rectangular areas :which' are to constitute the walls of the cells. The dimension of the respective rectangular areas in the direction transversely of the slots, vi'z., in the direction AA,' represents the height 10 of the compartment member; or the depth of the cells, whereas the dimensions in the other direction, B-B, represent the plan or horizontal dimensions of the cells. As a rule, the depth dimension, viz., the distance between the lines in the direction A-A, will be uniform. However, this need not be so of the other dimensions. WhereasI have shown in Fig. 1 all of the wall areas of uniform dimension in the direction B-B,

so thattheicells will be square, oblong cells may be formed by appropriately varying those dimensions. For example, the B--B dimension of the areas in'the first or topmost row and the third row may be two inches-while the 3-H dimension of those in the. second and fourth rows may be four inches: One endof therblank is formed with a row of gluing tabs II.

From this blank, the compartment member is formed by folding over'the end portions along the crease lines (1 and e, so that the tongues II overlap the opposite end of the sheet, as illustrated in Fig. 2, and gluing said tongues and overlapped portions together. This completes the fabrication of the article, and, as seen in Fig. 6, it is in efiect a flatly collapsed tube of a cross-sectional form corresponding to that desired for the compartments or cells, and is partially severed transversely into sections of a length corresponding to the desired depth of the compartments, adjacent sections being connected along only one margin of one side of each, viz., along lines l2, l5 and I4. These connected margins are in staggered relationship across the intervening corner crease line i.

For packaging and shipment to the user, a suitable number of the articles, in the fiat or collapsed form illustrated in Fig. 2, are stacked one upon another and packed in a carton or suitable wrapping.

The user thus receives the article in the form 5 illustrated in Fig. 2, and to set it up, the operator places it on the table with the finger apertures it down, and then folds one half over onto the other half along the creased line I5. This brings the device to the form illustrated in Fig. 3, wherein the finger apertures ID are positioned at opposite margins and with those in the upper and lower plies, or exterior sections, in register with each other. The operator then grasps the intermediate plies between the thumb and finger of each hand, as illustrated in Fig. 3, and swings them in opposite directions as indicated by the dotted arrows, until the margins l3, l3 are brought to the top, the device thereupon being in the form illustrated in Fig. 4. The compartment device as thus set up may be inserted in a carton K, as illustrated in Fig. 5, to subdivide it into four compartments, or it may be inserted with others in a larger carton, either side by side or one on top of another with intervening sheets, or it'may be otherwise employed. In the set-up form, the adjacent intermediate partition walls remain integrally connected along the folds [2, I4 and 15. Of course, the compartment member may be placed in the carton with either of its ends upward, and will function equally satisfactorily in either position. The cells provided by the acompartment member are appropriate for reception of articles which it is-desired to keep separate from one another in the package, for example, different kinds of candy, frangible :articles, etc.

'It 'is to'be ascertained from the foregoing that thedevice' is manufactured very economically and without any appreciable waste, that :it occupies minimum space when in collapsed fornnand that .it may'be-set'up very'quicklyandvery easily and without requiring"the insertion of the fingers .between adjacent plies oriinto'contact with-margins of the sheet, thus avoiding injury tothe fingers of the operator.

What'I claim is:

1. A .box device comprising aflattenedtubular member of paperboard or'the'like'creased'to assume :a quadrangular sectional form and subdivided by slits and 'creases'into a plurality of sec tions :disposed end'to 'end longitudinally of it,

the 'juxtaposedsectionsbeing connected to each other along 'a single wall margin of each, "and the'connected margins being located in "adjacent sides of "the'tube and staggered at opposite sides of the intervening longitudinal corner crease thereof.

'2. A compartmentb'ox device comprising a'flattened tubular member of paper board or the like partially severed into sections disposed end to end, said sections being creased to assume quadrangular form and adjacent sections remaining connected to each other by unsevered portions along a single wall margin of each, and said connected margins terminating at and being staggered at opposite sides of aligned corner creases of said sections.

3. A cellulose box comprising a collapsible tubular member of paper board or thelike partially severed into cell sections disposed end to end, said cell sections being creased from end to end to assume quadrangular form when the box is set up, andadjacent cell sections remaining connected with each other along only one wall margin of each, and the connected margins being staggered as between adjacent aligned sides of the cell sections.

4. A cellular box device comprising a collapsible tubular member formed of an integral sheet of paper board or the like and partially severed into cell sections disposed end to end, said cell sections being provided with corner creases extending lengthwise thereof so that said sections assume quadrilateral form'when the device is set up, and

aligned walls of the cell sections being provided with end marginal notches disposed symmetrically in alignment, the adjacent cell sections rermaining connected to each other along only one "wall end 'margin of each, and said connected margins extending at right angles to the corner creases and being staggered as between adjacent aligned series of sides of'the cell sections.

5. A compartment box device as specified in claim 2 and wherein the tubular member has four of said sections and-a wall of each section is provided at one end with a marginal notch, said :notches being disposed in alignment with one another longitudinally of the tube and at uniform intervals.

.6. A compartment box as specified in claim 1 and wherein there are four of said sections and a wall of each section 'is'provided at one end with a marginal notch, said notches being disposed at uniform intervals, one being at each end of the tube and two in the sections which meet at the transverse middle :line of the tube, and the fiattened tubular member being folded on said middle'line so that the notches are at opposite outer :margins of the exterior sections.

PAUL WALKER. 

